Drawn

  “You never saw her again?”

  He shook his head and put the back of his hand across his forehead. “One of the other missionaries on the compound across the city kept us at her place. She came in one morning, crying. She woke us up and said that Mom was gone. Dad didn’t come back right away, and when he finally did, it was like he died too.”

  I rolled onto my side and propped my head up with my hand. “You were missionaries?”

  “Yep. I’m an MK.”

  “MK?”

  “Missionary Kid. Homeschooled and everything.”

  “What’s homeschool?”

  He stretched his arms over his head. “Just like it sounds. Mom did our school at home. She taught Adam and me until we moved back here.”

  “She must’ve done a good job.”

  He smiled. “Mom was the best. She was a math teacher before they moved to Africa. She made everything interesting. Fun.”

  “So how do you like real school?”

  He smiled and looked at me. “Some parts of it are good.”

  I blushed. “So why did you come to Pam’s party?”

  Damon looked up at the cloud-pocked sky again. “A few reasons.”

  “Like?”

  “Like, I wanted to talk to you.”

  I blushed again, glad for the darkness. “What made you think I’d be there?”

  “Pam said you would.”

  I scowled. “I told her I wasn’t coming. And I really meant it at the time.”

  A bat swooped so low I waved my arm to scare it off.

  “Why have you been avoiding me at school?” Damon asked.

  “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

  “Come on.”

  Rats. “I’ve just been busy.”

  “Don’t lie. Why won’t you do the Academic Olympics?”

  How could he be so clueless? “I don’t care about the Academic Olympics.”

  “It’d look good on a college application.”

  “We’re in eighth grade, Damon. College is a long way off.”

  “It’s not that far off. And I think it would be a lot of fun. Erik said they had a blast last year.”

  I rolled over on my stomach. “I’m not the Academic Olympics type.”

  “What’s the Academic Olympics type?”

  “Brainy. Focused. Brilliant.”

  He turned onto his side. “You don’t think you’re any of those things?”

  “Mark’s the smart one. I’m just…”

  “Amazing. And for the record, Mark doesn’t seem that smart.”

  I laid my cheek down on my hand for a few seconds and when I sat up my necklace fell out of my shirt. “How would you know? You met him for, like, half a minute.”

  “He’s a senior, right? Eighteen?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “And he’s drinking at a junior high party, kissing a thirteen-year-old girl.”

  Some fierce sense of family loyalty flared and before I could stop myself I said, “Well, at least he’s never been to juvie.”

  I wanted to suck the words back in, but it was too late. They hung in the air between us like the smell of a dead skunk.

  Roll into the water and drown yourself. Now. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”

  Damon didn’t say anything for a long time, and I realized if he ditched me I’d have to walk all the way home alone in the dark.

  A billow of gray clouds passed over the moon and the night got even blacker.

  He looked at me again. “I probably deserved that.”

  “If you want to throw me in the lake I understand.”

  “I kind of do. But I’ll squelch that impulse. This time.”

  My eyes adjusted to the dim light and I saw him resting on his elbow. I tried to meet his eyes, but got all flustered again.

  “You’re right. I was in juvie for six months. It was the worst six months of my life. In some ways even worse than when Mom died. And it put me back a year in school.”

  I twisted my fingers together. “What happened?” I whispered.

  “You mean how did I get there?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  He knocked his knuckles on the wood and stared at me. “I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been.”

  I didn’t know what else to say, and I didn’t think I’d better ask.

  Then he leaned toward me.

  He’s going to kiss me!

  “What’s that?” he asked, and pointed at my necklace.

  I exhaled. What is wrong with me? Amica wouldn’t be scared of him kissing her.

  Had he kissed her already? The mental picture of his mouth against hers sent rivers of razorblades through my organs.

  “You there?” Damon leaned his head down to catch my gaze. He pointed at my throat again. “That?”

  I ran my fingers down the chain till I got to the pendants. “Oh. It’s just a necklace.”

  “Is that a key?”

  “Yeah. I found it in the driveway, and, I don’t know. I cleaned it up and thought it was kind of pretty.”

  He put his hand under it. “There’s a heart and a key.”

  His knuckles grazed my collarbone and threw my heart into convulsions. “It’s dumb.”

  “It’s mine.”

  “What?”

  “That’s my bike lock key. It’s been missing since I rode you home from the movie.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.” He turned it over. “See, it says ‘World Locks’.”

  “Oh. I thought it said ‘Word Logos’.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know.” I sat up and reached back to unhook the clasp.

  My thumbnail pulled the little hook open and I slid the hasp free. Then I dropped the whole thing.

  Damon thrust his palm out and caught the key and pendant, but the chain zipped through his fingers, slid into a crack between the raft’s boards and disappeared.

  “Oh, man. Sorry. I got these,” he showed me. “But not your necklace.”

  “My fault.” I sighed.

  The clouds released the moon and it lit up the whole lake again.

  Damon turned the key and crystal heart over in the palm of his hand. “I hate to take it back. I like what you did with it.”

  “But what would Amica say about some other girl having the key to your bike?”

  He stuffed the key in his pocket, but kept turning the heart over between his fingers. “Amica?”

  I crossed my legs and stared at him.

  He lay back on the raft and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “So that’s why you’ve been avoiding me all week.”

  Now I wanted to shove him in the lake.

  “There’s nothing between me and Amica.”

  I looked away. “It’s none of my business, anyway.”

  He sat up and faced me with this smug grin. “There is nothing between me and Amica. And you were right. She totally faked being hurt.”

  I put my hand on my cheek, dropped my voice an octave and imitated him in the cafeteria. “Why would she fake being hurt?”

  “Is that me? Is that how I sound?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “Because Amica likes to be the center of attention.”

  “Because Amica hates me.”

  “Because you’re the biggest threat to her being the center of attention.”

  What?

  “You don’t see that?”

  “I don’t see it.”

  “Then you’re as innocent as you are amazing.”

  If he’d tried right then, I might have let him kiss me.

  * * * * *

  Neither of us had a watch, and I had no idea how long we’d been at the lake. I never, ever wanted to leave, and it didn’t seem like Damon did either. But the moon had slid pretty far across the sky since we got there, and we both shivered when the wind blew harder over the water.

  I followed Damon along the pier’s creaky boards and he held out his hand to hel
p me step onto the shore. Every time he touched me I went weak all over, and I couldn’t think about anything but that feeling. I let go of his hand as we walked toward the bike, just to get control of my head and crazy, pounding heart.

  Somewhere beyond the lake an owl screeched. The faint buzz of night creatures whispered from the trees, and the wind crackled in the leaves overhead.

  “It’s really peaceful here,” Damon said. “I hate to start the bike.”

  “The bike’s pretty loud.”

  “Okay if we just walk a while?”

  He flipped up the kickstand and rolled the bike toward the tree line. I walked on the other side and wrapped my arms around myself.

  “You’re freezing, aren’t you?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m okay.”

  “If we ride we’ll get there faster, but it’ll be a lot colder.”

  “No, I want to walk.” I’d take a slow, cold walk over a fast, colder farewell.

  We followed the dirt path through the woods till we came to the wild raspberry and rose briar. He stopped the bike and turned to look at me. My toes curled up inside my shoes and I put my hand on the seat of the bike.

  Gravel crunched just beyond the woods. Two headlamps broke through the foliage and lit us up like spotlights. Red and blue strobes whirled across the tree trunks and a siren chirped, loud. I shielded my eyes and turned away.

  “Oh, man!” Damon dropped the bike on the ground behind the briar and grabbed my hand. “Come on!”

  He pulled me out of the woods, directly into the path of the headlights. “What are you doing?” I would’ve run the opposite way.

  “Don’t say anything about the bike, Julie.”

  A huge, man-shaped shadow passed between us and the car’s lights and stopped. Then a sharper beam hit my face and blinded me.

  “Put your hands where I can see them and move toward me.”

  Damon lifted his hand in the air and took mine with it. “We were just taking a walk.”

  When we stepped out from the trees the officer with the flashlight grabbed Damon’s arm and separated us. Another pair of hands grabbed my arms from behind and I screamed.

  “Leave her alone!” Damon shouted.

  The officers pushed us toward the car.

  “Hands on the hood. Both of you.”

  One of the officers felt around Damon’s waist and legs. The shorter one stood between us and looked down at me. “Juliet?”

  I wanted to melt into the ground and disappear.

  Tammy’s father took his hat off and tucked it under his arm. “I sure didn’t expect to find you out here.” He looked at Damon. “And with a boy.”

  The other officer looked over. “You know these two?’

  “I know her. She’s my daughter’s friend.”

  “He’s clean.” The policeman stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Turn around, son. Keep your hands out of your pockets. You too, young lady.”

  Damon and I faced them and stood against the car. I put my hands straight down at my thighs and looked at my shoes.

  “What were you doing in the woods?”

  I glanced at Damon.

  “Don’t look at him. Look at me,” Officer Barrett’s partner barked.

  “Nothing,” I said, but my voice came out a whisper.

  “We were taking a walk. That’s all,” Damon said.

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Damon Sheppard.”

  The two policemen exchanged glances and the partner nodded and kind of smirked. “What do you know about the party at the Martz house?”

  My stomach churned.

  The partner pointed his flashlight at me. “Have you consumed any alcohol this evening?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Are you willing to consent to a breathalyzer test?”

  I shrugged.

  “She’s only thirteen,” Damon said.

  He pointed his flashlight in Damon’s eyes. “And how old are you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Older and wiser, huh?”

  “I wasn’t drinking. I’ll do it,” I said.

  “What about you, Mr. Sheppard? Have you been drinking?” Tammy’s father walked over to the side of the car and reached inside the open window.

  “No, sir.”

  Officer Barrett stepped in front of me and held up a small, gray box. “Take a deep breath, then blow into this until I tell you to stop. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  He pushed a button on the box and it beeped, then he held it up to my mouth. I breathed in as deep as I could and put my lips around the cold, plastic tube. My breath came out ragged and too fast. My hands and mouth shook.

  “You’re doing fine. Just a few more seconds.”

  Then the box beeped long and loud. He took it away and shined his flashlight on the back of it. After a little bit it beeped again. “Nothing.”

  “Now you,” the other officer said to Damon, and they repeated the test on him.

  “Congratulations, son.” He put the box back inside the car.

  “What were you two doing out here this late at night?”

  “Just talking. We lost track of time.”

  They both looked at Damon with stern eyes and squared jaws. Then Tammy’s father walked over to the car and opened the back door. “Let’s get you home, Juliet.”

  The other officer grabbed Damon’s arm and took him around to the other side. He put his palm on top of Damon’s head and pushed him down into the back seat with me.

  The red, white and blue lights pulsed against the trees on one side of us and over broken stalks of harvested corn in the field on the other. My back knocked against the cold vinyl seat as we bounced over the rutted gravel road.

  Damon twined his fingers through mine. His fingertips covered the back of my hand and mine fitted between his knuckles. He looked straight ahead and the muscle in his jaw knotted into a hard knob, but he squeezed my hand and rubbed his thumb along the hollow between my thumb and first finger. Half an hour ago I would’ve passed out or run screaming into the woods if he’d done that.

  If only I’d gone home when he told me to.

  Tammy’s father turned around. “Do your parents know you were at that party, Juliet?”

  “No, sir. But I was only there for a few minutes. Really.”

  “Pam Martz is in a great deal of trouble. So are a lot of kids we caught at her house.”

  “Are we?” I asked.

  His partner scowled at me in the rearview mirror. “You’re lucky we don’t have curfews in this county. But if I were your father, I’d tan your hide anyway.”

  We drove past Pam’s house. Two police cars idled in her driveway and an officer led a handcuffed boy across the porch. Plastic cups littered the yard and splintered shards of glass hung in one of the front windows. Pam’s parents stood just inside the door and talked to another officer. Her mother looked like she might throw up down the front of her party dress and her father’s face bloomed as red as an overripe tomato.

  They drove us up my driveway and Damon let go of my hand. As Officer Barrett opened my door, Mom and Dad came out the front door of the house.

  “Tom?” my mom said. “What’s going on?”

  I glanced back at Damon. He forced a half smile. “What about your bike?” I whispered.

  He shook his head.

  Tammy’s dad walked me up to the house. “We’re working clean up on the party at the Martz house and found Juliet in the woods.”

  “In the woods?” Dad roared. He looked at me, then at Tammy’s dad, then back at me again. “What were you doing in the woods?”

  The other officer pointed to the backseat of the car. “She wasn’t alone.”

  Mom sucked in her breath and put her hand over her lips. “Is that him?”

  Words stuck in the bottom of my throat, so Tammy’s dad answered. “His name’s Damon Sheppard. Do you know him?”

  “I know of him.” Her nostrils f
lared.

  “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Dad took a step toward me and I shrank back. Tammy’s father moved between us. “Howard, don’t do something you might regret tomorrow.”

  “Get upstairs,” Dad growled through clenched jaws.

  I glanced back at Damon.

  “Move, young lady!” Mom hissed. She grabbed my upper arm and jerked me into the house.

  I pulled away from her, took the stairs two at a time, grabbed the doorjamb and swung around the corner into my room. I bounced over my bed and threw open the window.

  Tammy’s dad and his partner stood on the front steps and talked in low voices to my parents. The car sat crossways in the driveway, so I could only see the front windshield and the fat, black numbers painted on the roof.

  I’d rather have been in the backseat of the police car with Damon than anywhere else in the world. Even my own bedroom.

  Officer Barrett and his partner put on their hats and stepped down over the broken brick. The front door closed. I held my breath and waited to hear angry footsteps on the stairs, but they never came.

  The car’s engine turned over and the cruiser crept toward the road. Damon sat on the far side of the backseat, so I saw only the light from the street lamp as it slid over the empty place where I had been.

  I watched the car’s red taillights bob up and down in the darkness until the car turned left and disappeared into the woods and the night.

  My hair fluttered in the night wind. I pushed it off my collarbone and felt the empty hollow in my throat.

  My crystal heart.

  Damon still had it.

  CHAPTER 16

  No one spoke a word on Sunday morning until we got into the sanctuary, and as soon as the pastor said the benediction we filed out. Mom gave a fake smile, hug, and Peace-Be-With-You to everyone she saw until we got in the car and drove home in more silence. I changed clothes and fled the house before anyone could stop me.

  Pam’s yard looked pretty good compared to last night. No trash, but tires had torn up the grass in random streaks across the lawn. A black plastic bag striped with duct tape covered the broken window, and behind the house two full bags of garbage leaned against the overflowing metal can.

  Pam’s window hung open a couple of inches, but I didn’t see any movement inside.

  I walked down to the access road. Some illogical part of my brain decided not to ride my bike, in case Damon’s was still there and I needed to retrieve it. Halfway to the lake, however, I realized that I couldn’t drive it if I found it, and I had no better place to hide it even if I could.

  I ducked into the tree line and skirted around the raspberry-rose briar.

  Nothing there but pine needles and broken twigs.